Night Diver: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  The boat had the patina of metal that had been hard used, beaten and bitten with thousands of tiny scars and scratches. Pieces of tread from old tires had been fixed on the outer side of the gunwales. The resulting rub rail wasn’t fancy but would get the job done. TT Golden Bough 2 was painted in faded letters across the stern.

  One of the main ship’s two tenders, Holden noted, mentally checking it against the list of equipment that had appeared on the contract. Wonder where the other one is, plus the pricey speedboat Farnsworth uses.

  A few moments after Kate stepped into the open cabin, the boat engine fired up with less stink and rattle than the truck had. Holden looked at what he could see of the aluminum bottom of the boat. There was some sign of water along the center seam, but nothing unexpected. Less than a cup of tea, really.

  Right, Holden thought. At least the Donnellys keep diving and support gear in decent order.

  Kate came back from the cab and looked at him, silently asking why he was still on the dock.

  “Would you like me to cast off for you?” he asked.

  “No need. Our tenders are rigged for single handling.”

  Holden took that as an invitation and stepped from gunwale to the centerline of the tender, making almost no disturbance to the motion of the boat. His thigh protested, but he was used to it. He stowed his bags under a seat in the open cabin, watching while Kate stepped up onto the dock and cast off with a minimum of fuss.

  She pushed the boat away from the dock with her foot, landed lightly aboard, and moved quickly but not carelessly to the controls. Soon she had the speed up to the maximum that the hull was designed for. While she drove, she checked her heading against the simple navigation screen. A multitude of dotted lines pointed out to sea, converging on a spot in the distance.

  Despite the strain on her face, he could see that she knew her way around boats—perhaps even as well as he did. Her body flexed to the changing movement of the water, she handled the controls with unconscious expertise, and yet she had the air about her of someone being forced to do something quite frightening.

  “You don’t like being on the water, do you?” Holden asked, pitching his voice to be heard above the hearty roar of the engines.

  For a moment she acted like she hadn’t heard him.

  “I don’t like collard greens, but I eat them,” she said finally. “Life is rarely about what you like.”

  As she spoke, she felt something loosen just a bit inside her. She could do this. She really could. It was just a matter of keeping her mind from being sucked back down into the nightmares.

  The ocean around St. Vincent is quite beautiful, she reminded herself. All those clear, luminous shades of blue.

  Resolutely she kept her eyes to the surface of the water, where things were warm and lazy and full of light.

  “The dive site is about five kilometers out from one of those islets, yeah?” Holden asked, pointing toward the dark dots that were growing from the sea.

  Her tentative peace evaporated at the word dive. Her parents had died off those islets, searching for Bloody Green’s legendary treasure ship.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just following a route someone else entered in the nav computer.”

  Yet even as she spoke, a combination of memory and instinct and nightmare assured Kate that the Golden Bough was anchored uncomfortably close to the site where her mother had vanished and she had pulled her father’s convulsing body from the stormy sea.

  Kate shoved the thought down into the part of her mind where darkness waited. She concentrated on watching the Golden Bough take shape in the distance. Its black hull and dark red superstructure stood out from the blue expanse of sky and sea like a checkmark. The closer she got, the more she could see that the ship had been on the water for a very long time. A thorough bottom cleaning and paint scraping was in order.

  I don’t see how Grandpa will make enough money for basic maintenance on this lousy job.

  To deflect the panic gnawing at the edges of her self-control, Kate concentrated on separating the real Golden Bough from the pitching, careening black blob of her nightmares.

  Festooned with antennas and radar domes, the ship’s conning tower rose up off the elevated forward deck. It was a patchwork affair, having been added to and built up over decades. A huge metallic arm dominated the stern deck. Grease and hydraulic fluid leaked out in rusty brown streaks from every joint, announcing that the Golden Bough was a hardworking, seagoing pack mule. Like her captain, she was salty and pragmatic, and she refused to be consigned to history.

  Nothing to be afraid of, Kate assured herself. Nothing at all.

  “She hardly looks a day over sixty,” Holden said, his voice dry.

  “The Golden Bough was purchased in 1966, built in 1959 in Providence by Cooper Shipping Works,” she said absently. “When its most recent owner went bankrupt, Grandpa bought the ship.”

  Holden made an appreciative noises. The builder had a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic for making exceptionally sound, affordable ships.

  “It’s difficult to get that kind of quality anymore,” he said.

  “So Grandpa always says.”

  She eased back on the throttles as they approached the starboard side, where part of the gunwale on the lowest deck was hinged to open inward. Deckhands or divers off rotation popped their heads over the rails, looking down curiously. She waved to them as she brought the tender around to the side opening.

  Holden assessed the dive boat in his mind. Despite its lack of flash and polish, the ship could take about anything the sea felt like dishing up—so long as the engines had been cared for regularly and competently. Sometimes the appearance of clean and shipshape was just a pretty wrapping on a rotten package.

  “There’s Larry,” Kate said, cutting the throttles to idle as the tender bumped gently against the larger boat. “He’ll be down in a moment. Throw your duffels aboard. I’ll keep you close enough to step up on the gunwale and then onto the lower deck of the ship.”

  “Shall I take a line?”

  “I’m leaving,” she said. She heard her own clipped voice edged with fear and winced. Way to win friends. Think of his sexy exterior and not the robot inside. “My work is ashore, thank you. I’ll wait here until the crew unloads the supplies.”

  No sooner had she finished speaking than her brother was calling to her.

  “Hurry up, sis, and get a line up here. I haven’t seen you since Christmas before last!”

  She looked up at all the faces peering down, shades of skin from ebony to brown to the sun-reddened, freckled face of her brother. Wisps of orange-red hair stuck out from the hat he wore.

  For an instant she was five again, looking up into the face of her father. Tears stung.

  Damn you, Larry. You know I don’t want to come aboard again. And you know I should.

  So do I, now.

  But I won’t dive. There isn’t enough treasure in all the Caribbean to make me go underwater again.

  Holden threw the line to Larry, who tied it off quickly, giving Holden time to watch his beautiful pilot go pale, flush, go pale again, and then turn off the engines. Her mouth was a grim line of determination, a difficult feat with her full lips. They usually made a man think of kissing and nibbling. Everywhere. All inappropriate, of course. This was an assignment, not a holiday with a side of sex.

  Too bad his mind and body kept pointing that way.

  “After you,” he said politely.

  Holden watched while Kate went from the tender to the ship with the speed and temper of a scalded cat. The man who was apparently her brother swept her up into a big hug. For a moment or two, she was stiff. Then she hugged him in turn.

  Holden envied the brother even as he wondered about the family dynamics. The murmuring of the crew reminded him to pull his mind away from the woman and concentrate on his job.

  According to the briefing he had received, Larry was captain of the ship and head of the dive operation b
ut always deferred to the elder Donnelly. Patrick Donnelly was at best a rapscallion, and at worst a thief. He was also a legendary treasure hunter who had lost his son and daughter-in-law during a dive to find a pirate’s hoard. Like all treasure hunters, no booty that Patrick Donnelly ever found had the allure of what was still out there, waiting in the depths for him to discover. The death of his son hadn’t even made him pause.

  It’s an illness, Holden thought. Or a madness. By all measures, he has infected his grandson with it.

  But not his very curvy, tempting granddaughter.

  Again, he pulled himself away from thinking about Kate and focused on the crewmen who had come to greet the newcomers. From the look of their dark skin, most were native to some part of the Caribbean. They had the lean, sinewy bodies of divers. So did the fourth man, though with his ragged, straight dark hair and brown skin, he looked like he was Spanish or South American. All were clean-shaven. Divers only grew facial hair on their time off. Beards, mustaches, and any combination thereof got in the way of the seal between dive mask and face, which got in the way of survival.

  A shaggy blond-haired man appeared, his unruly mane tied at his neck with a leather thong. His beard and the dough-covered wooden spoon in his hand pegged him as the cook.

  To a man, they watched Holden with open suspicion.

  Very well, he thought with wry satisfaction. I’m not here to adopt the lot of them or be the new bloke at the pub buying pints. It is time to polish the right-bastard act.

  He threw his duffels up onto the deck and followed them aboard.

  Kate sensed him behind her, hesitated, then said softly to Larry, “If you try to trick me into a dive suit, I’ll take the pressure regulator and shove it up so far you’ll be spitting metal.”

  Her brother went still, then let out a shout of laughter. “There’s the old Kitty Kat. Welcome home!”

  She tugged on his hair to let him know she meant every word, then turned toward Holden. Before she could say anything, Larry stepped around her, his hand extended.

  “Mister Holden?” he asked.

  Holden shook his head as he pressed Larry’s hand with a patented dead-fish shake. “It is Mister Cameron. Check your paperwork. You may give me a tour of the operation after you show me where I’ll be bunking.”

  Kate gave Holden a sidelong look. He seemed bent on sharing the least appealing side of his personality.

  “You’ll be sleeping ashore,” Larry said tightly. “We don’t have any room.” He swept his hand around. “This isn’t a damned tour boat.”

  “Excellent. I’m not a tourist. Do keep up, mate.” Holden waited, watching behind his impenetrable sunglasses while Larry flushed stoplight red. “My quarters, if you please.”

  Behind Larry, the crew shifted restively, their distrust giving way to curiosity about who would come ahead in this shouldering contest.

  Though Holden appeared not to notice the crew, he was aware of every shifting expression. Their responses would tell him if Larry was leader only in name, or if the divers actually would back him in a brawl.

  At the moment, the crew was simply waiting and watching.

  So was Kate. Her rather skeptical expression told him that she wasn’t quite buying his entire act. Holden tried to regret not being a complete bastard in her eyes, but couldn’t. She was just too appealing to him, and her intelligence was a growing part of her allure.

  Fortunately, her brother was a much easier sell. He was ready to toss Holden overboard.

  “Who died and left you king of the universe?” Larry muttered.

  Holden heard. “Must I repeat? Check your paperwork. The contract specifies that you will provide food and housing for whichever representative or representatives of the Antiquities Office request—”

  “We’ll feed and house you,” Larry cut in. “Just not on the dive ship. You’ll stay ashore with Kate and Malcolm, unless he’s still aboard catching up with his logs.”

  “Not bloody likely,” Holden said with a disdainful curve of his mouth. “What little of worth that you have found shouldn’t tax his abilities to that degree.”

  Kate wrapped one hand around her brother’s wrist. He had an uncertain temper at best. When he was under pressure, he exploded regularly.

  “Actually,” she said to Holden, “it takes just as much time to find and enter a potsherd properly as it does a gold doubloon.” Her tone of voice said he should know that.

  “Pity that potsherds don’t pay the overhead,” Holden said.

  “Last time I checked,” Larry shot back, “you were the ones who needed a job done and weren’t able to do it yourselves. How we got it done wasn’t supposed to be your problem.”

  “The job has yet to be done,” Holden said. “That is your problem.”

  Kate’s grip on her brother’s wrist tightened, holding his fist to his side.

  “You’re lucky we’ve found what we have,” Larry said. “The storm last year that uncovered the wreck scattered as much as it revealed.”

  “And another storm can cover it all up again,” Holden said. “Given current conditions, British Weather Service has projected that this area is in a likely storm track due to become active within six to eight days.”

  “But last year’s storm,” Larry began, then changed tack. “The chances of two big blows in a year on the same track are—”

  “The weather, Mr. Donnelly, does not give a tinker’s damn about your opinion. If you flip a coin and get heads ten times in a row, what are the odds of getting heads on the eleventh?”

  Holden watched Larry do some math in his head. He had to work at it. Perhaps that was due to the bruises of fatigue under his eyes or the smell of stale beer on his breath. More likely, he simply lacked mathematical competence, unlike his very bright, much younger sister.

  “The odds are—” Kate began.

  “The question is to your brother,” Holden said over her.

  “Less than two percent,” Larry said.

  She sighed.

  “Wrong,” Holden said. “The odds are fifty-fifty. Apparently you are lacking in more than the ability to read and understand simple paperwork. At this time the AO believes that wreck H-37 holds far more than we have yet seen cataloged. With the storm brewing out there, we have little time to find treasure and secure it. That, Mr. Donnelly, is a problem for both of us. Shall we get on with it?”

  Kate’s clenched fingers kept Larry from speaking the first words on his tongue. The crew watched Holden now, not supporting him, but recognizing that he was ahead on points at the moment.

  “There’s no guarantee of treasure,” she said distinctly. “The contract only states that the Bureau of Historic Reclamation, a branch of the Antiquities Office, gets to keep what Moon Rose Limited hauls up. Without a manifest for and a positive identification of the hulk in question, nobody knows what’s down there, thus there is no assurance of worth.”

  Unlike Larry, her attitude wasn’t defensive. She had learned as a younger sister the truth about offense being the best defense.

  “So the AO should be content with the cannonballs and trinkets that you’ve pulled up so far?” Holden asked. “This operation has cost—”

  “Precisely what the signing and commencement fees of the contract have stipulated,” she cut in. “Which, by the way, is far less than it would have cost you to get a British naval salvage crew out here, assuming you had one to spare, and also assuming you could get in place before the doldrums ended.”

  “Yeah,” Larry said, putting his arm around Kate and silently saying, See? This is why we need you. “It’s our necks on the line down there, not yours. So don’t walk in here and start pissing all over everything that we’ve done.”

  “In any case,” Kate said, “we’ve brought up nearly a hundred silver ingots and a scattering of silver jewelry. All of which you can happily melt down and put into the Crown’s coffers. You’re hardly empty-handed at this point.”

  “Even if it is determined that the silver is
of no historical significance and melted down,” Holden pointed out, “at the price of silver in today’s market, my employer is uncomfortably distant from recovering its investment.”

  “That’s why it’s called a treasure hunt,” she said. “There is no guarantee of success.”

  “Point to the lovely lady,” Holden said, smiling in spite of himself. He turned and looked directly at the crew. “That should take care of the formalities. At the moment, time is of the essence. Go back to work. If need be, I’ll talk to you individually about your dive jobs.”

  The crew stirred uncertainly, but turned away, accepting Holden’s authority.

  Which was the entire purpose of that little farce, he thought. Good old Larry no longer has to figure the odds of lightning striking twice. He is still feeling the voltage.

  Kate didn’t move. The smile Holden had given her had changed him from robot to something that made her pulse scramble. She suspected that his personality had more facets than the average diamond.

  And when he cut, it was to the bone.

  CHAPTER 3

  FOLLOWING THE DIRECTION of Holden’s glance, Kate saw that he was watching her grandfather on the upper deck, and probably had been from the beginning. Cultural glitches aside, very little escaped Holden’s striking eyes.

  Something in the silent exchange between Holden and her grandfather kept Kate from running up to the wheelhouse to give his wiry body a hug. Lit by sun that was almost directly overhead, Grandpa appeared stark and dramatic. His head—bald but for a longish sliver fringe spreading from ear to ear—had been burned a dark teak from long hours in the sun, as had all of his body save the parts covered by faded shorts. His stance was casual, but somehow distant. His teeth were clamped on the stem of an unlit pipe, his elbows were resting on the rail, and his pale eyes gleamed with intelligence as he watched the newcomer.